The Orange Order had not marched to Drumcree church in 1998, 1999, 0r 2000 (WP). This banner in Wapping Lane, Londonderry, reminds people to “be prepared” for the current year’s conflict.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01531
The Sınn Féın offices and shop on the Falls Road at Sevastopol Street were torn down and rebuilt in 2000. A mural had been on the gable wall since 1982, initially advertising An Phoblacht/Republican News, and later included Bobby Sands. (1989 white | 1990 blue)
The mural on the new gable, shown above, removes the full An Phoblacht/Republican News masthead and instead includes the visual part of it (most prominent in the earliest mural on the wall An Phoblacht – Official Organ): the crest of 1798’s United Irishmen – “Equality” and “It is new strung and shall be heard” around a Maid Of Erin harp and the cap of liberty.
Otherwise the wall is devoted to “Irish republican, revolutionary, poet, Gaeligeoir, visionary” Bobby Sands/Roıbeaırt Ó Seachnasaıgh, adding another famous saying of his, namely “our revenge will be the laughter of our children” alongside “everyone, republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play”. [Diary, March 14th, 1981]
The mural also adds a border of breaking chains (and a lark) and (not visible in the apex) a phoenix and the word “saoırse”. The multi-coloured border is perhaps the most unusual element, working with the sky-blue background and Sands’s smiling face to give the mural a positive feel.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01489
“1980” is included with “1981” for the twentieth anniversary of the hunger strikes, with portraits of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01488
Commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strikes on an advertising hoarding on the Springfield Road, Belfast, previously the site of Vote Adams X and before that, Victory To The Blanketmen.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01484
Another “H” formed of images of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers on the 20th anniversary of the strike.
Glen Road, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01480
The 20th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike is commemorated on the side of the Felons club with Bobby Ballagh’s Legacy Of The Hunger Strikes, showing ten doves breaking out of a H-Block. For the controversy over the image, see this Guardian article. Falls Road/Lake Glen Drive.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01471
The Gibraltar Three (Maıréad Farrell, Sean Savage, Dan McCann) – “executed by British crown forces in Gibraltar 6th March 1988” – are memorialised with a plaque and the last three verses of Bobby Sands’s Rhythm Of Time: “It is found in every light of hope/It knows no bounds nor space/It has risen in red and black and white/It is there in every race.//It lies in the hearts of heroes dead/It screams in tyrants’ eyes/It has reached the peak of mountains high/It comes searing ‘cross the skies.//It lights the dark of this prison cell/It thunders forth its might/It is the undauntable thought, my friend/That thought that says ‘I’m right!'”
Hawthorn Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01455
Shots are fired over a Tricolour-covered coffin, with a poster or plaque of the ten deceased 1981 hunger strikers.
For the phoenix below, see The People Arose in ’69.
Clowney Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01454
“They stand for the honour of Ireland/As their sisters in days that are gone/And they’ll march with brothers to freedom/the soldiers of Cumann Na mBan”. The portraits on either side are of Winifred Carney and Nora Connolly.
Hawthorn Street, west Belfast
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01452 [M01889]
IRA in the colours of the Tricolour on the light-poles of Springhill Avenue/Springhill Heights, west Belfast.
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Copyright © 2001 Peter Moloney
M01435
